Strong Like Her
by Nora Charles
Summary: Lana isn't strong like Chloe. PG for violence.


STRONG LIKE HER

by Nora Charles

The flames of the campfire licked over yet more of them as they welled out - a seemingly endless stream of bloated, singed bodies. Their skin was crusty and cracked, and fluids oozed out of the blackened sores, but their cold beady eyes stared stoically out of puffy faces as they mindlessly advanced.

Lana gripped her pointy stick so tightly her hands ached. The sweat made it slide slickly in her grasp. One of the _things_ came within reach, and instinctively she pulled her stick back, holding her elbows tightly against her body. Her clenching gut screamed at her to run, run! but her knees turned to jelly under her and the impulse was only realized as a sharp jerk that shot pain all the way up and down her bowstring-tight back.

"Poke it!" Chloe yelled somewhere off to her left, and Lana became aware of the bright beige of her sheepskin coat as she swung her arms, whipping the oblivious faces of the things with her stick.

Lana got her eyes back on the closest one, god, nearly right by her foot, she touched the point of her stick to its heaving front, and had to look away as she pushed and felt almost no resistance - the others _how many, five, six?_ were coming closer, advancing on her and Chloe, there were so _many_ and she had to look down again. At the... _oozing_, the thing was sliding forward and her stick was impaling it further and further and it was oozing, goo was running in a thick rivulet out its wounded chest; it was dying and it didn't care, it was still advancing, the hot flesh an inch from Lana's hand as it finally deflated and expired. She jerked the stick loose from the corpse, and tried to check on the position of the others, but the landscape was jumping crazily around her, branches waving in the dark, dancing flames and leaping shadows, they were close, too close, and her stick popped free with a slurp as she stumbled back and fell on the spongy forest ground.

"Lana! Are you okay?" Chloe yelled, beating one of them about the head and holding another down in the campfire with her booted foot, until it burst into blue gaseous flames.

Lana sat up and batted with shaking hands at the twigs and gross moist materials caught in her hair, pulling at it. She had lost the stick. Smoke blew into her watering eyes, and she couldn't see what had happened to Chloe, why she was down. She groped around her, the stick was _gone_, and she couldn't hear if Chloe were saying anything over the sound of the half-strangled hysterical whine pouring out of her throat.

Her right hand closed over a rock, the edges cutting her. She jumped to her feet and kicked out at the nearest thing, landing a perfect blow on its squishy head.

Chloe was back on her feet, yelling encouragements that Lana couldn't make out. The thing clung to her foot. Its head was at a sickening angle, flopping, but it held on to her tenaciously, and started climbing. She kicked out again, but couldn't shake it loose, then brought her foot down and stomped on it. Its crusty body sank into the soft mulch unharmed, but at least it couldn't make its way up as long as her weight was on it.

"Cut off the head!" she heard Chloe wheeze, as a beige blur ran past her to attack the last of the creatures steadfastly closing on what had been Lana's blind side until she turned.

She bent forward and brought her sharp rock down hard on the exposed throat. The thing struggled weakly, making the head flop around some more, and she slashed her rock over its throat again, then used her other foot to kick off the partially detached head.

It was dead. She had killed it.

She looked around for any more of them, but saw only bubbling carcasses, and Chloe grinning from ear to ear.

"You know, their eyes won't even dissolve in hydrochloric acid," Chloe said with grim satisfaction. Her nostrils flared, and she nodded firmly. "This is another one for the Wall of Weird, no question!" She casually tossed her now broken stick into a bush, and strolled over to their campfire.

The previously so neat circle of rocks lay scattered, and the plastic bag the peeps had come out of had half melted over a jagged green one. Chloe kicked it derisively, then started kicking dirt and mulch over the still burning logs to put them out.

"What say you we go back up to your house and get some hot cocoa?" Chloe asked. Lana could barely make out the halo of her blond hair in the dark copse of woods without the fire. "_Sans_ marshmallows," her friend added with a wry chuckle.

The paralysis suddenly left Lana's body, and she staggered over to the nearest tree, shivering, and caught her hair back with one hand as she leaned her left shoulder against the trunk, and retched and retched.

She felt a tentative touch against her back, and heard the soft sound of her name. For the first time tonight Chloe seemed insecure. She wiped her sleeve over her lips, and swished saliva around her mouth and spit.

Then she straightened back up and put on her brave face. "I'm all right," she said, and her voice didn't shake at all.

Chloe's hand wound itself around the lapel of her jacket, then relaxed and stroked over the wool nervously. Over her boob, but Lana didn't say anything.

"Do you... Do you still want to do the sleep over thing? It's okay if you don't, we can do it some other time, or we don't have to do it at all..."

Lana put her hand over Chloe's, and squeezed gently. "I'm good," she said. "Or I will be when I've brushed my teeth!"

Chloe laughed delightedly, and Lana could see the white gleam of her teeth. She smiled too, letting her lips part so Chloe could see it.

They hooked their arms together, and started stumbling their way back up to the stable, occasionally bumping into trees, and giggling all the way. When they came out on the open hayfield the moon lighted their path, and Chloe chatted animatedly, gesturing enthusiastically with the arm she wasn't using to cling to Lana.

They ate the graham crackers sitting cross-legged on their open sleeping bags spread over the planks of the loft.

o0o

When Chloe was sound asleep, Lana picked up the electric lantern, being careful not to let the handle clink, and climbed down the ladder.

Flicka greeted her with a sleepy whinny as she entered her stall, and Lana leaned into her strong side and let her tears soak into her soft, sweet-smelling coat. Flicka gave her whuffling horsy kisses up her neck and ear, and swished her tail over them both. Lana laughed, and wiped her face on Flicka, sniffling.

The horse whinnied more loudly, and moved restlessly, bumping Lana.

"All right, all right!" Lana said, smiling for real this time. "You're okay, Lana loves you." She got down the currycomb from the hook on the wall, and started dragging it over her friend's flank in long, sure strokes.

The end.

Notes:  
For Carolin, Kel and Kat.  
Because peeps are scary.  
Because I'm not that nice.


End file.
